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WAS JOHN lillNYAN A GIPSY? 



AS r)iscussi':i) in i.ittkks si^nt to 'iiii'; i.ondon 



DMI.Y NliWS, 



AND NOW I'ARIIClll.ARI.Y A t)l>N I'.SSh.l) TO I III-. 



STUDl'lNTS i)V WW. UN I VIJ^SI TI ICS. 



BY 

J A M I'S "^S I M SO N, 

I'ditor o/ 
"simson's iii;,iokv ()!■ I UK (; I I'.'i I KS," 

(lll<{ .lullllll ()/ 

" CONTnniU'lIONH to NAIUKAI. lir.IOKY AND \'\V\\>:\ t)U OirilK ■'.ill:}Ei/r^\" ■ "(;||AI<I,If,8 

WATi;it'ION " ; '"lill, l,K(;ij;,W UMVI.K.'lir/IK and JOIIN riUNVAN"; "IIIK W.OITIhH 

CIIUKCIIKH AND THIC dlVHlKH" ; " KKMINIHCl.NCKH OK riHI.DIJOOlJ AT * 

INVKIilCI ITI(IN(;, OK I.IKK AT A I.AZAKK ITO " ; AND " JOIfN 

KUNVAN AND TIIIC (JJKSIKS." 



" A';",r(liii(; to ttir f;iir ;il;iy •,( ll]'; world, 
Lcl llir )i;iv(: aiI(Jii:ilfjf:." — SlIAK'.i'KAKK 




NKW yOKK: jAMI';S MILLKK 

EDINfU;fU;iI : MACI,Af:iII,AN k STKWART. 

i.ONiKiN : iiAn.i.ii.i'k, 'iiMMM, & cox. 

1882. 

AIJ, I<lf,inS RKSICRVKO. 



?K^ 



c.-^ 






CorvKuair, iS.^j. r.v 
JAMES SIM SON. 



p-?^ 



PREFACE 



The title-page of this little pulpHcation states that it is " par- 
ticularly addressed to the students of the universities." It is 
based on a History of the Gipsies, published in 1865, in a prefa- 
tory note to which it was said that this subject, 

" When thus comprehensively treated, forms a study for the most ad- 
vanced and culti\'ated mind, as well as for the youth whose intellectual and 
literary character is s^till to be formed ; and furnishes, among other things, a 
system of science not too abstract in its nature, and having for its subject- 
matter the strongest of human feelings and sympathies." 

This race entered Great Britain before the year 1 506, and sooner 
or later became legally and socially proscribed. It has been my 
endeavour for some years back to have the social proscription re- 
moved ''the legal ov.g. having ceased to exist;, so that at least the 
name and blood of this people should be acknowledged by the rest 
of the world, and each member of the race as such treated accord- 
ing to his personal merits. The great difificulty I have encoun- 
tered in this matter is the general impression that this race is con- 
fined to a few wandering people of swarthy appearance, who live 
in tents, or are popularly known as Gipsies ; and that these " cease 
to be Gipsies " when they in any way " fall into the ranks," and 
dress and live, more or less, like other p(iople. Unfortunately 
many have so publicly committed themselves to this view of the 
subject that it is hardly possible to get them to revise their opin- 
ion, and admit the leading fact of the question, viz, : that the 
Gipsies do not "cease to be Gipsies " by any change in their style 
of life or character, and that the .same holds good with their de- 
scendants. Taking the race or blood in itself, and especially when 
mixed with native, it has every reason to call itself, in one sense 
at least, English, from having been nearly four hundred years in 
England. The race has been a very hardy and prolific one, and 
(with the exception of a few families, about which there it no cer- 
tainty; has got very much mixed with native blood, which so 
greatly modified the appearance of that part of it that it was en- 
abled to steal into society, and escape the observation of the native 
race, and their prejudice against everything Gipsy, .so far as they 
understood the subject. 

It is a long stretch for a native family to trace its descent to 
people living in the time of Henry VTIL, but a very short one for 
a semi-barbarous tribe as such, having so singular an origin as a 

(3) 



4 FJREFACE. 

tent, as applicable to all (.Icscoiulinq; from it, ho\vc\'cr iiuicli part 
of their blood wvax be of the ortlinary race ; the origin of which is 
geiieralh' unknown to them. Thus they have no other sense of 
origin than a Gipsy one, and that " theirs is a Gipsy famih'," of an 
arrival in England like that of yesterday, with words and signs, and 
a cast of mind peculiar to themselves, leading, by their associations 
and s\-mpathies of race, to them generalh'. if not almost invariably, 
marrying among themselves, and perpetuating the race, as some- 
thing distinct from the rest of the world, and scattered over its 
surface, in various stages of ci\"ilization and purit}- of blood. 

Leaving" out the tented or more primitixe Gipsies, there is 
hardly anything about this people, when their blood has been 
mixed and their habits changed, to attract the I'vc of the world ; 
hence it becomes the subject of a nioital inquiry, so far as its 
nature is concerned. And the human faculties being so limited 
in their powers. e\en when trained from early youth, it will be, at 
the best, a difficult matter to get the subject of the Gipsies un- 
derstood ; while it appears to be a desperate effort to get people 
beyond a certain age, or of a peculiar mind or training, to make 
anything of it, or even to listen to the mention of it, w hieh almost 
seems to be olTensive to them. 0\\ this account, if the subject of 
the Gipsy race, in all its mixtures of blood and aspects of mean- 
ing, can ever become one of interest, or even known, to the rest 
of the human famil\', it must be taken up, for the most part, by 
young people \\hose minds are ojien to receive information, as 
illustrated by what I wrote in connexion with Scotch university 
students : — 

"At their time of life they are more easily impressed with the truth of 
what can be demonstrated, than after liaving- acquired modes of thought and 
feeling in regard to it. which have to be moditicd or got rlvi of, alter more 
or less trouble and sometimes pain." 

This subject does not in an\' way clash with what is generally 
held in dispute among men, but touches many traits of their com- 
mon humanity. Its investigation illustrates the laws of evidence 
on whatever subject to which evidence may be applicable — that all 
questions should be settled b}- facts, and not by suppositions; and 
that no one has a right to maintain capriciously that anything is 
a truth until it is proved to be an untruth. As regards John Bun- 
van, it is not in dispute that he was an English ))uxn, but whether 
he was of the vativc English race, or of the Gipsy English one, or 
of both, and holding b\' the Gips}^ connexion. \\'hat is necessary 
to be done is not merely to correct, but to create, and perma- 
nently establish a knowledge that has now no existence with peo- 
ple generally, in consequence of the habits of the original Gipsies 
leading to their legal and social proscription, and the n.aturally 
secretive nature of the race, which has been intensified by the way 
in which the\' were everywhere treated or regardetl. 

Apart from this subject in itself, it ma}' be said to be one of those 
side questions which it is always advisable for a student to have 



I'A'P./'A C/C. t 

on liand, as a menial relief after severe studies, aivl to liberalize 
or expand his mind ^^enerally. 

The (juestion of Jr;hn Jiunyan having been of the fii[)sy race, 
discussed in the following pages, is merely an incidental part of 
the subject of the Gipsies. What I have said there about the 
Rev. John Brown, of iiedford, makes it unnecessary for me to adrl 
much here, except to say that, as he has no standing in the 
discussion of the Gipsy question as applicable to Jiunyan, he would 
not be listened to but for his being ininister of Jjunyan's Church, 
and setting forth theories as to his nationality that meet the pre- 
conceived opinions and ardent wishes of others. His discovery 
of Jiunyan's descent is of great interest ; but for it to be of any use, 
he should have taken it to such as were able to interpret it, instead 
of proclaiming that he had thereby done away with the idea of 
Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, to the apparent welcome 
of those who will have it so. lie had previously "done away 
with " the same idea by discovering that the name of liunyan ex- 
isted in Kngland before the Gipsies arrived in it ! As the occu- 
pant of Jkinyan's pulpit, it was clearly his sacred duty to carefully 
scrutinize the information left by 13unyan as to "what he said he 
was and was not, and his calling and surroundings," for these exr 
clusively constitute the question at issue, and as carefully study 
everything bearing on the subject. Had he done so, he would 
have fouiid that the family of the illustrious dreamer did not enter 
England from Normandy with V/illiam the Conqueror (whatever 
might have been the blf;od of William and Thomas Honyon in 
1542), or were native English vagabonds, as some have tlujught, 
but Gipsies whose blood was mixed ; so that John Bunyan doubt- 
less spoke the language of the race in great purity, and was capa- 
ble, after a little effort, to have written it. In England to-day 
there arc many such men as Bunyan, barring his piety and genius, 
following his original calling, that speak the Gipsy language with 
more or less purity, saying nothing of others in much higher po- 
sitions in life. Of the former especially I have met and conversed 
in America with a number, who had no doubt of John Bunyan 
having been one of their race. 

Whatever the future may bring forth, I have no reason to change 
what I wrote in Contributions to Natural History, etc., in 1871, in 
regard to the only bar in the way of receiving Bunyan as a Gii>sy 
being the prejudice of caste against the name : — 

"Even in the Unite-d States I find intellif^ent and libcral-minflcfl .Scotch- 
men, twenty years absent from their native country, saying, ' I would not like 
it to be sairj,' and others, ' I would not have it said,' that liunyan was a Gipsy " 
(('■ '5«)- 

This feeling cannot be changed in a day, however involuntary it 
frefjuently is, or however much it may be repudiated in public. 

The Gipsy, whatever his position in life, and however much his 
blood may be mixed, is exceedingly proud of the romance of his 
descent. The following extracts arc taken from the Disquisition 
on the Gipsies on that subject : — 



5 PRE FA CE. 

" He pictures to himself these men [John Faw, Towla Bailyow. and others, 
in 1 540], as so manv swarthy, slashing heroes, dressed in scarlet and green, 
armed with pistols and broad-swords, mounted on blood-horses, with liawks 
and hounds in their train. True to nature, every Gipsy is delighted with 
liis descent, no matter what other people, in their ignorance of the subject, 
may think of it, or what their prejudices may be in regard to it " (p. 50b). — 
" If we refer to the treaty between John Faw and James V., in 1540, wc will 
veiy readilj- conclude that, three centuries ago, the leaders of the Gipsies 
were very superior men in their way ; cunning, astute, and slippery Oriental 
barbarians, with the experience of upwards of a century in Kuropean society 
generally; well up to the ways of the world and the general ways of Chuirh 
and State, and. in a sense, at home with kings, popes, cardinals, nv^bility, 
and gentrv. That was the chamcter of a superior Gipsy in 1540. In 1S40 
we find the race ix^presented by as fine a man as ever gj-aced the Church of 
Scotland " (p. 465^ — " Scottish Gipsies are British subjects as much as cither 
Highland or Lowland Scots : their being of foreign origin does not alter the 
case; and they are entitled to have that justice meted out to tlieni that has 
been accorded to the ordinary natives. They are not a heaven-born race, 
but they certainly found their way into the country as if they had dropped 
into it out of the clouds. As a race, they have that much mysterj-, original- 
ity, and antiqviity about them, and that inextinguishable sensation of being 
a branch of the same tribe everywhere, that ought to cover a multitude of 
failing's connected with their past history. Indeed, what we do know of 
their "earliest historv is not nearly so barbarous as that of our own ; for wc 
must contemplate our own ancestors at one time as piiinted and skin-clad 
barbarians. What we do know for certainty of the earliest histoiy of the Scot- 
tish Gipsies is contained more particularh' in the Act of 1540 ; and we would 
naturallv sav that, for a people in a barbarous state, such is the dignitv and 
majesty! with all the roguishness displayed in the conduct of the Gipsies of 
that period, one could hardly have a better, certainly not a more romantic 
descent ; provided the person whose descent it is, is to be found amid the 
ranks of Scots, with talents, a character, and a position equal to those of 
othere around him. For this reason, it must be said of the race, that when- 
ever it shakes itself clear of objectionable habits, and follows any kind of 
ordinary industry, the cause of eveiy prejudice .against it is gone, or ought 
to disappear; for then, as I have ah-eady said, the Gipsies become ordinar\- 
citizens of the Gii>S5- clan. It then follows, that in passing a fair judgment 
upon the Gipsy race, we ought to establish a principle of progression, and 
sot our minds upon the best specimens of it, as well as the woi^t, and not 
judge of it solelv from the poorest, the most ignorant, or the most barbarous 
part of it " (p. 479). 

Satisfied with, even proud of, their descent, the Gipsies hide it 
from the rest of the world, for reasons that are obvious, however 
much I have explained them on previous occasions. And thus, as 
I wrote in Coritributuvis to Katuml History^ etc., 

"It unfortunately happens that, owing to the peculiarity of their origin, 
and the prejudice of the rest of the population, the race hide the fact of their 
being Gipsies from the rest of the world, as they acquire settled habits, or 
even leave the tent, so that they never get the credit of any good that may 
spring from them as a people "(i 58). And this may have been going on 
fromthe time of their arr.val in England. 

With reference to this phenomenon, I wrote thus in the Dis- 
quisition on the Gipsies : — 

" Now, since John Bunyan has become so famous throughout the world, 
and so honoured by all sects and parlies, whvat an inimitable instrument 
Providence luis placed in our hands wherewith to raise up the name of 
Gipsy ! Through him wc can touch the heart of Christendom ! " (p. 530). 



J'N/.JA (:/■:. y 

II vvoiiM be a .sad tiling to liavc the century close without the 
Gipsy race bein^' acknovvled^fed by the rest of the world, in some 
form or other, or that that should be deemed unworthy of our 
boasted civilization ! To get this subject completely before the 
British public would resemble the recovery of a lost art, or the 
discovery of a new one. People taking it up there would require 
to show a high degree of courage, canrlour, and courtesy, and all the 
better cjualities of their nature. 

On the 8th .September J wrote thus to the editor of the Dai/y 
Navs : — " I intend printing the articles sent you as the bulk of a 
pamphlet, .... so that 1 am in hopes you will have previously 
printed them in ihc Daily News," which he does not .seem to have 
done. 

New York, 2d October, i?,?j2. 



WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY? 



I.* 



''1^1 II'", fust notice of mv paiiiphlrt, 
J^ iir.dtjr tlie title (li Jolin Jhiiiyaii 
and the Gipsies, that has come under 
my observation 1 found in tiie Daily 
News of the 15th Au;^ust. In the 
preface to it I said :— " 'I'iiis little \n\h- 
lication is intended, in the fust place, 
for the British Press," as an a[)peal 
for a hearing on the subjects dis- 
cussed in it. The time that elapsed 
between receiving the pamphlet and 
writing the notice of it was too short 
to enable ahiiost any one to do jus- 
tice to it, for that required time to 
think over it as having reference to 
my |)revious writings, to which the 
two letters to an English clergyman 
contained in it were merely an allu- 
sion. 

Tile writer is hardly correct when 
he speaks of the "long debated ([ues- 
tion of whether the illustrious author 
of the Pil^riiiis Progress was of 
Gipsy race." This question has not 
been even once "debated" in En- 
gland, so far as I, living in America, 
am aware of. I stated it fully in 
Notes and Queries on the r2th De- 
cember, 1 85 7, and more fully in the 
History of the Gipsies, published by 
Sampson, I^ow & Co. in 1865 ; again 
in Notes and Queries on the 27th 
March, 1875, with reference to the 
"fairish aj^pearance " of IJunyan, and 
the existence of his surname (vari- 
ously si)elt) in England before the 
(lipsies arrived in it; then in Con- 
tributions to Natural History and Pa- 
pers on Other Subjects, and The En- 
}:;lish Universities and John Jhtnyan, 
and The Encyclopccdia Jhitannica 
and the Gipsies ; then in The Scot- 

* Dated 3oih August, 1882. 



tish Churches ami the Gipsies ; and, 
fnially, in the pamphlet alluded to. 
So that, instead of having " nothing 
to say" to the "fairish appearance" 
and the sinname of Ikinyan, I fully 
anticipated these (jucslions, and dis- 
posed of them as they were brought 
forward by people at a venture, who 
seemed to know nothing of the sub- 
ject they were treating. Much as I 
have published on this question, I am 
not aware that any one has ever at- 
temi)ted to set aside my facts, argu- 
ments, and proof that John IJunyan 
was of the Clipsy race. My "op|)o- 
nents" (so called) assume that he 
was of the ordinary I'-iiglish race, and 
there/ore was, and must be held to 
have been, such till it is proved that 
he was not that, but of the (li[)sy race, 
or something else ; a most unreason- 
able positi(Mi for any one to take up. 
So far from peoi)le stating the kind 
of proof i\\iiy want, they simply pass 
over everything I have written on 
the subject, and repeat their unten- 
able, meaningless, and oft-refuted as- 
sertions. Thus the Rev. John Brown, 
of Hunyan Church, Bedford, a|)par- 
ently knowing nothing of the Cijisy 
subject, and disregarding everything 
printed on it, and looking neither to 
the right nor the left, makes out from 
the surname that the illustrious 
dreamer's family was a broken-down 
branch of the fMiglish aristocracy, 
instead of, as Hunyan himself told 
us, " the m(^'lnest and most despised 
of all the families in the land," and 
" not of the Israelites," that h, 7iof 
Jews, but tinkers, that is, Gipsies of 
more or less mi.Ked blood ; so that 
his having been a tinker was in itself 
amply siiflicient to prove lUmyan to 



10 



11'.! s yo^y B ry v.i.v .i o/rs > • / 



h;\w boon of tho Ciipsv raco ; wlulo 
it lUuslratod aiul connrmod his ad- 
mission about " his taihcr's house" 
having lu^on ot" the (.lipsy tribe. 

Having written so tVeiiucntly. and 
at such length, on this subject, it ; 
wouKi be impossible, at least unrea- , 
sonable. to repeat in a newspaper! 
article what I have done, and 1 must | 
refer the reader to the various pul>- 
lications a^entioned. . 1 may allude 
to the scepticism of i>/<i.'Arv\\>./, who 
will not believe that Uunyan was of 
the Gipsy race because he did not i 
say so plainly, in the face of theleg;\l ! 
and social responsibility ; * and to 
that of Mr. Ctroome. the writer on 
the (upsies in the ICftcw/c/'iCJiiJ J^ri- 
/a//«;\\jr, because he alluvled to a 
Gipsy woman carrying otV a child. ' 
and because his children did not bear 
the old-tashionevl Gipsy CArisfut-'i 
names which were adopted by the ' 
race attcr their arrival in Europe. I 
disposed of these tritling and mean- 
ingless objections in their proper 
places, and need not reproduce them | 
heie.t The stnxngest thing ad- 
vanced about liunyan is the asser- 
tion that it is impossible he could 
have been a Gipsy, because the 
nan>e existed in England before the 
race arrived in it. Eivm this it 
would follow that there can be no 
Gipsies in England, or anywheiv else, 
because they bear surnames common 
to the natives of the soil. The cir- 
cumstances under which they adopted 

*C»*fr}?'Mh\»/«s A» yaturxt! //istfty^ etc,, 
p. ijS. I 

f I have commenteti on the assertion 
of Mr, Groome. that "John Buuyan. 
fr\^m {wrish rx\i::isters. does not 5\'^->pc-ar to 
have had one drop of Gipsy bUiod." as if i 
that Cv'>«M have been ascertained from 
parish rejiisters \ I did not expect to 
tind sx:ch a lot^se idea as that in the £"«- 
m'%Vii'«.} /»*nVt}«f«*VtJ, taken from a cas- 
vial or stray contrit>»ilor to ,\\>t^s anJ 
Q^i-nf-f. But I find a«\ English jovirt^al 
quoting it as a /nv/ that Bunyan was nvit 
of the Gi\>sy r.tce ; and supp^^^:in>^- it by 
Mr. FrvHide's ignoring the question in his , 
highly cv»nvei\tional work on Banyan. : 

pp. II, 52 and 59. 1 



these, and how (.lipsies of mixed 
blood are lomul of all colours, 1 have 
on previous occasions elaborately ex- 
plained. Hence it can be said that 
the writer in the J\i:h -^V-u^<■ is not 
strictly correct when, in allusion to 
the two letters to an English clergy- 
man, contained in the pamphlet, he 
says that 1 *' have nothing to say to 
all this"; and that " this is really 
all the evidence, as well as all the 
argument, forthconiing on the sub- 
ject." This subject has no standing 
if we do not admit of the existence 
of a "ferocious prejudice of caste 
against the name of l>ipsy"; and 
that in regaul to the nationality of 
lohn Bunyan, "the question at issue 
is really not one of evidence, but of 
an unfortunate feeling of caste that 
bars the w:ty ag^iinst all investigation 
and proot"." 

Apart from John Bunyati person- 
ally, the subject of the race to which 
he belong-ed has a very important 
bearing on the " social emancipation 
of the Gipsies " in the Ihitish Isles. 
There cannot be less than several 
hundred thousai\d of these in vari- 
ous positions in lite — many, perhaps 
most of them, ditVering in no other 
way from the '* ouiinary natives " but 
that in respect to that part of their 
blood which is Gipsy, they have 
sprung, really -or representatively, 
frv^m //I.-' A'/;/ — the hive from which 
the whole of the <.">ipsy tribe have 
swarmed. Notwithstanding that, this 
tact carries certain mental peculiari- 
ties with it. which should be admit- 
ted as a preliminary step to a full so- 
cial equality, should the incognito 
Ciipsy element in society present itself 
for that purpose. 

Since the above was written I 
have read with great interest the let- 
ter from " Thomas Bunyan, chief 
wauler. Tower of London, and born 
in Roxburghshire," in the-Ai/7v JWtVjr 
of the 17th. The origin which he 
gives of the /^ywt' is apparently the 
correct one. vii. : that '* the first Bun- 
yan was an Italian nvason, who came 
to Melrose, and wms at the building ot 



IFAS yOUN n UN VAN A C/f.'iV? 



I I 



ih.'il famous ;il>Ij(;y in iIk," y(.'ar 1 1^'') ; " 
.111(1 lliat "the ()l(li:st j^ravcstoiic in 
tlic graveyard around jVldrosc Aljbcy 
has on it llic name of I'nnyan." In 
my I)is(|iiisilion on the Oipsics, piib- 
lislKfd in 1S65, I said: — "TIk,- name 
I'lUnyan w<MiId S(;(;m to b(* (;f for(;i;^ii 



orij^in " (|). 519). It docs nr)t neces- 
sarily follow that the IjUkhI (;f the 
Italian mason flowed in John l>nn- 
yan's veins, except by it havinij in 
some way got mixed with ;uid ni':rj^':d 
in that of the (iii)sy race.* 



Il.t 



The following letter, which I ad-' 
dressed to-day to a clergyman of the 1 
Chnrch of ICngland, apjilies sc) well I 
to the Rev. Jolin l>rown of I'unyan 
Church, Bedford, that it maybe con- j 
sidercd as the first part of my reply 
to his letter in the J)iiily Naos of 
the 22d Angiist. The remainder will 
follow soon. I 

I have to thank yon for your letter 
(jf the 22fl August containing a nevvs- 
l»aper sli|>. You say that the idea of 
Pjimyan having been of the Oipsy 
race, "from absolute want of evi- 
dence is totally incapable of proof," 
and "from beginning to end is no 
better than a C(jrijecture "; and that 
as proof to the contrary is "the fact 
that before the birth of I'luiyan his '' 
ancestors are known t(j have resided 1 
in Bedfordshire for niany genera- 
tions, some of them having been 

* Mr. Hro'.vn objects to Us being said 
tliat the I';ri;,'tisli Hiiiiy;iiis rouWJ li.ive 
S(jrun;( from iiiiny.'iris tli:it left Sf;oil;in<l 
fifty years before 154'i, for the reason that 
be finds rrieri of that name in JCri^larid 
in I2i(j, 1257 and 1310. Thomas J<un- 
yan, if he is correct in his iiiforrnaiion, 
snys that the Italian mason of the name 
of Hiitiyan was at Melrose in 1130. 'I'iie 
narfie might have had its origin in for- 
eign masons called Hunyan, as there 
would be families of that craft, contin- 
ued from generation to generation, dur- 
ing the middle ages, employed in church 
architecture all over ICuro[)e, including 
Kngland as well as .ScMland. I liave 
not seen Mr. Thomas iJnnj'an's infor- 
mation, as quoted above, called in ques- 
tion by any one. 

f Dated 6th September, 1882. 



landed prf)i)rietors." iVov/ rea'l wliat 
liunyan said of himself: — 

" For my descent, it was, as is well 
known to many, r;f a low an. I iiieon- 
siderabie generation, my father's house 
being of that rank tliat is meanest aiKl 
most rlespi.sed r^f all the families in the 
land." 

Tliis lU'sr/.'tU, he said, was " weil 
known tf) jtumy." Was not that a 
fad? If it was then ''well known 
to many," how has the knowledge of 
it died out in his Church antl neigh- 
bourliood ? A fact like that could not 
have \nn.tx\ foryj)lle.n within two cen- 
turies, during which time iJuriyan's 
memory, willi all relating to it, has 
been cherished more and more, un- 
less it had been, at some time, wil- 
fully or tacitly suppressed ; and an 
attempt marie to conned him even 
with the aristocraf:y of the country I 
I have never seen or heard of an al- 
lusion to any of his relations, al- 
though the great probability is that 
there was an " extensive ramifica- 
tion" of thei7i. The reason 1 have 
assigned for that is that " very prob- 
ably his being a tmker was, with 
friends and enemies, a circumstance 
so altogether discreditable as to 
render any investigation of the kinrl 
perfectly superfluous" (iJis. p. 5 1 yj.]; 

t In an article in Notes and Queries, for 
the 27th March, 1875, I said ; — " In addi- 
tion to the investij/alionsmade in church 
registers, ( wmjld suggest that the rec- 
ords of the different criminal courts in 
Bedfordshire (if they still exist) should 
be ex.'imined, to find if i<eo[d',- of tlie 



12 



WAS JOJLV liUXYAX A GIPSY? 



"A low and inconsiderablo genera- 
tion." What did tliat phrase moan ? 
And as if that were not sufficient, he 
adiloil tliat "his father's house" was 
*>of ihat rank that is meanest and 
most despised of all the families in 
land "; and still not satisfied with 
that, he ctuitinued : — 

" Another thought came into my 
mind, and that was, whether we [his 
family and relations] were of the Israel- 
ites or no? For finding- in the Script- 
ures that they wore once the peculiar 
peoi)le of (.lod, thought I, if I were one 
of ihis lace [how significant is the ex- 
pression ! ] my soul must needs be hap- 
py. Now again, I fountl widun me a 
great longing to be resolved about this 
question, but could not tell how 1 
should. At last I asked my father of 
it, who told me. No, we [his father in- 
cluded | were not." 

In inv nisquisition on the Gipsies 
I said : — 

" Such a questiwi is entertained by 
the Gipsies even at the present day, for 
they naturally think of the Jews, and 
wonder whether, after all, their race may 
not, at some time, have been connect- 
ed with them. I have heard the same 
question put by Gipsy lads to their 
parent (a very much mixed (lipsy), and 
it was answered thus : — ' We must have 
been among the Jews, for some of our 
ceremonies are like theirs ' " (p. 51 1). 

I presume that no one will (]ues- 
tion the assertions that lUmyan was 
a tinker, and that English '* tinkers "' 
are simply (lipsies of more or less 
mixed blood. Put together these 
three ideas — his description of his 
" father's house," and their not being 
Jews, but tinkers, that is, Gipsies of 
mixed blood — and you have the evi- 
dence or ])roof that John Bunyan was 
of the Gipsy race. If people are 
hanged on circumstantial evidence, 
cannot the sayie kind of proof be 
used to expUun the language which 
liimyan used to remind the world 
who and what he was, at a time when 

n.ime of Bunyan (and how designated) 
are found to have been on trial, and for 
what offences." — Contributions, etc., p. 
1S6. 



it was death by law for being a Gip- 
sy, and "felony without benefit of 
clergy " for associating with them, 
and odious to the rest of the popula- 
tion ? From all that we know of 
lUmyan, we could safely conclude 
that he was not the man to leave 
the world in doubt as to who and 
what he was. He even reminded 
it of what it kne7C> well ; but with his 
usual discretion he abstained from 
using a word that was batmed by the 
law of the land and the more despot- 
ic decree of society, and concluded 
that it perfectly understood what he 
meant, although there was no neces- 
sity, or even occasion, for lum to ilo 
what he did.* 

Why then say that there is an 
" absolute want of evidence " in re- 
gard to Hunyan having been of the 
Gipsy race, and that it is " totally in- 
capable of proof"; and assert that it 
is a fact that his ancestors were 
'' landed proprietors," and that there 
might be better grounds for holding 



* Tlic language used by Bunyan in de- 
scribing who and what he was, was so 
coaiprcliensivo anil graphic that by using 
tlie word "Gipsy "he would have con- 
fused his reader, for in that case he 
would have had to explain its meaning 
as applicable to himself. This would 
have been (oreign to his subject, and, 
in iho face of the legal responsibilitv, 
would have compromised his personal 
sati'ty, and proved a bar to his useful- 
ness, ox standing in society, as illustra- 
ted l)y the aversion on the part of so 
many to investi,eate the idea to-day. Me 
said that his " descent was well ivuown 
to many." Did not that imply that he 
IkuI been more precise to many in/'rimti^, 
but would not use a word in his Grace 
.Ihou/titing ^ This heading was very ex- 
pressive when we consider that many 
would almost seem to think that the 
" Gipsy tribe," or those possessing Gipsy 
blood, are outside of "God's covenant- 
ed mercies." According to Mr. Biown, 
Hunyaii's language, as we shall see, 
" might simply mean that his father was 
a poor man in a village!" and that in 
ascertaining wlio lie was, "I have really 
nothing to go upon but Bunyan's own 
words" about liimself (which is not a 
fact), as if these had no beaiing on the 
ipiesiiiui, and were not worth listening 
to, and possessed no meaning ! 



IV AS yO//.V BUN YAM A G/PSY? 



13 



that Iliinyan was of Norman origin 
than of Gipsy descent ? 

iJunyan was eitlK.T of tlie Oipsy 
race (of mixed blood) or of the na- 
tive one. 1 have given the proof of 
the former — proof which, 1 think, is 
sufficient to hangan)an. Where is 
the proof of his having been some- 
thing else than of the Gipsy race ? 
And if tiiere is no proof of that, why 
assert it ? What Biinyan said of his 
family was proof xh'At he was tiot of 
the native race. Asserting as -i. fact 
that, from the surname, his ancestors 
were ordinary natives of England, 
and landed proprietors at that, is 
nearly as unreasonable as to main- 
tain that every English Gii)sy of the 
name of Stanley is nearly related to 
the Earl of Derby because his name 
is Stanley. 

Like any one charged with an 
offense unbecoming Englishmen, al- 
most any of them will protest that 
he has no prejudice against the name 
of (jipsy, and that " he would not 
have the smallest objection to be- 
lieve that Jiunyan was one of the 
race if the fact was only proved by 
sufficient evidence"; while at the 



same time he will retain and mani- 
fest his i)rejudices, and entirely ig- 
nore the evidence, or refuse to say 
in what respect it is deficient, and 
believe the opposite, or something 
entirely different from it, wilhr)ut a 
l)article of proof in its favour, or 
entirely disproved by Bunyan's ad- 
mission in regard to his " father's 
house." 

The Oipsy subject will not always 
remain in its present position. It 
will sooner or later have a resurrec- 
tion, when some one will see who 
were the "goats" on the occasion. 
Hunyan will occupy a very important 
position in what is now represented 
by the following extract from my Dis- 
quisition on the CJipsies, published 
in London in 1865 : — 

" It is beyond doubt that there rnn- 
not be less than a quarter of a million 
of CJipsies in the British Isles, who are 
living under a grinding despotism of 
caste ; a despotism so absolute and 
odious that the people upon whom it 
bears, cannot, as in Scotland, were it 
almost to save their lives, even say who 
they are ! " (p. 440;. 



TIL 



The main thing to be considered 
in regard to JVfr. Brown is to ascer- 
tain his motive for investigating the 
question whether or not John Bun- 
yan was of the Gipsy race, and the 
steps he took to that end. I am 
satisfied that his only motive, from 
first to last, has been to get rid, un- 
der any circumstances, of what he 
considers a s.tigma cast on Bunyan's 
memory. He is apjjarently entirely 
ignorant of the subject of the Ciipsies, 
and will listen to nothing that bears 
on Bunyan's nationality. How then 
does it happen that he should step 
out into the world and say so i)osi- 
tively that Bunyan was not of the 

* Dated 8th September, 1882. 



Gipsy race? \\'\% first " proof " was 
the discovery that the name of Bun- 
yan existed in England before the 
Gi[)sies arrived in it, so that on that 
account John Bunyan's family could 
not have been Gii)sies, but a broken- 
down branch of an aristocratic fam- 
ily ! That "proof" i)roving worth- 
less, he has recourse to what he finds 
to have been Bunyan's ancestor, ap- 
parently on the " native side of the 
house," viz. : Thomas Bonyon, who 
succeeded his father, William Bun- 
yon, in 1542, to the property of 
" Bunyan's End," that is, a cottage 
and nine acres of land, about a mile 
from Elstow Church. This Thomas 
is described as "a labourer, and his 
wife as a brewer of beer and ' a baker 



14 



if.-f.s' yoNx Bi'xy.i.v a i^/rsvf 



of huiiuvn bread.' '* In luy Disqui- a fAiuily living certainly in the same 



Miion on the t.ipsies I said in regarvi 
lo Jo'an 1km van : — 

" Be\x»nd heinj:^ a Gi|vsy it is imjx'vssi- 
ble to s.\y what his po<Ug»iee ivally was. 
His p'andlathcr mijvht have been an 
oixlinarv uatlxxs exxtx of (air birth, wl\o, 



cottage and cultivating the sjiuie land 
from i54i to 1641. and |m>bab!y 
nmch earlier, a f;ict whicli seems to 
me utterly fatal to the theory of 
Ciipsy blood" — assiuning that the 
blood of the f^imilv through niarriage 



in a ih;>u$;-htless monunt. might hax-e j ^^'^^^ "f'^^ Lnglish all the way down ; 
' sjx>neolt\vith the Gipsies': or his an- U'hI that they cuUivateti the nme 
cestor on the xxative side of the house | acres ot land, and did not rent or 
might ha\T beet\ one of the * many En- 1 sell it. h)r Thouias l»unyan by his 
glish loitejxi^' who joimxl the Gij^sies 1 will, viatevl in 1041. leaves "the col- 
on their arrival i»> i:»tj;l and. when they j ^.^ge or tenement wherein I d^K^ now 
x\x^|v • esttH^mevl and hold nx great aomi- : ^^^,.^,j ,, ^^j,;^ Tiionuis could not have 
rafon u>. >'^;. A^J; " I-^J «» ^-n^^y i ^,^^.,^ j^^^ ^,,^^j, j,,^. o,andson of the 
oncf be grattcd u v>n a nau\x^ tanulv > . . , .,,, '^ , , 

and she rises with u : leavens the little ! ""^.\ - »;ent»oned 1 honuvs. and de- 
cijvle of which she is the centre, and senbeo hunself m Ins will, datevl 
lca\-es it and its descendants for all Xovember joth, 1641, asaypettie 
tiiite coming Gipsies" (p. 41a).* chapman" — ;v calling that is very 

connnon with Gip&ies v)f mixed blo<,xl. 

Thomas iKMivon seems to have The will of his son Thomas ()ohns 
been born about 150 i.f and was ap- tather) is dated Mav .-Sih. 1675. in 
luivntly of the native race, as w-as which he describes himself as a 
pivkibly his wife : but between him . .* brasever " — which is a favourite 
and Thomas (^John's grandtather), j xvorx.1 with the iJipsies, and sounds 
whose will was dated in 164'- V^*-^«'«i better than tinker, and is frequenily 
were doubtless several gx'nerations. ; p.^t on their tombstones. Mr. Uiowii 
Without asking with whom each gen- \ ^x\^ . — » From this it apjvars tiiat 
eration of this family niarried, Atr. | Hunyan's father was the tii^t tinker 
Bixnvn saj-s :— ** Here, tlien, we Uax-e j^ ij^- family." Instead of tiiat. he 
1 slKHild have siiid that it was the i\ist 

* Mr. r5orn>w. in his <;f>;V,c tn .W/», j ^^,^e Aw/;</ ifl .7 ftV//. Again he s;ivs 
gives a very ki>»P^kj aocv>unt ot the r<s , , -, , Oascovertxl tVom the an- 
suU ot ;i nvarruvjjv between a ^^v^nK\^l . - » • i> 1 

ana a Gi}v^y wonum. I have alUuitHi to V"^" returns Ot the junshes m IkxI- 
it, in the iVisquisit-on on the Gii\sies, ;is to«\!shire between 1 00^; and 1O50, that 
"a \-^ry fine illustration ot this principle , " ihe families both of lUmvan's tather 
onxaUVoivc^i ultra Giiv^ytsm." chat ot;<- an i.^,,^! ^^f j^j^ ,„olher, Maigaivl Ifent- 
othcer m the ^ivanish armv aviopnTVii- a , ,- • ., iwk- .• 

voun< tV.nale Gi\vsv child, wluv^e [vxtTnt^ '^X' ^^:^''*-' ^'^^'S ^Ik-'x^ aU this tune as 
havl iHxn excoutovi. and evhicatins and 1 steadily as any of the other vulage 
marryinji her. .\ son ot this inarrl;i}ix^. ' tamilies. and as unlike a Gipsy en- 
who \v>se to he a captain in the service j oampment as can well be concei\-ed." 

of Dvinna IsillH^l. hatcil the white nxce »» , ,-.„„» ,. , ^,, .i. ;..»•.>,-„» i.i.xn I'n 
. ^ , . 1-11 » . n ».■. We tounu no sucii uuoimaiion m 

so intenselv as. when a child, to te!' his 1 • 1 .. » 

father that he wisheii he On^tatherUx-as I "Annual |)arislv ivturns, but |>er- 

dead. At wluvjse dvv^r must the cause of j haps merely the tact of lUmyan's 




opuiKMi can DC tonnev.1 upon 
without knowinj; some of the cirvum- 
siances ev>nnectt\l with the feeli;\^ of 
the father, or his rvlations, towaixl th« 
nwther and the Gii>sy race generally " 

f This Thv^mas Bv^n^^>a tni»;hl not 
ha\-e l>oen Iv^rti till nu-\ny yeai-s after 1503, 
*s I have e\pi.iii\evl at {\is;c 1.^. 



kering all over the neighlvnuho^Hl, 
as it?gulatevl by the chief of the 
tinkers or Gipsies for the district, 
l^yond the cottage being the resi- 
dence of Thomas, we knt>w not»nng 
of his movements, nor of the com- 
pany coming to his house ; and if 



//',/.',■ ■foiiN itnNVAN A cirr.Yf 



I") 



Ml. I'liDVVii li:iil kiiovvii ;iiiylliiii,", ol 

\\W. Hllhj' I I ol Ihc < ilJiMi',, Ol liccll 
vvillilii'. Id I<miii iI Ii'Mii olln-i-;, hi; 
vvoiilil liol li;iv-- < OIK lii<l< il lli.il llie 
I'.iliiyaii'i vvci'- iiol oi lli.il i.icc, 
liiricly lic«'.;iir.<- lli' y iiiii'.lil not ^r. j 
lli'-y |ii'oli;il)ly ilul noi ) n .<• ,i i-nl. 1 1 \ 
WMiiliI ;i|)|i(Mi lli.il Ml. lliosvii li;r. i 
no! iii.r,l'-l<-i| cvili ill'- III. I I'l 111' i|'l'- 
ol ilir, Mil-|'-< I, '.o .-f. lo \v .ll.l- lo 
(|i;(iiic wlial III iiK-.'uit, hy II, b<;iii)=; !..ihI 
tli-it I'liiny.'in w.ih ux w;ih nol, of llic 
(iipny i;u;c*. 

'I'lioiiKiH I'oiiyoii, III i';i'', '.ill''! ;• 
" l.il.oiiicr " ill a Icf^.il (loc.iiiiiciil. or 
I'-' Old, ;iii'l IiIh wife .'I " lii'cwcr ;i,ri(l 
l)ukcr/' .'ipjic'ir to luivc kc|)l. ;i liiili- 
wayKid'; |)iilili(; lioinic, whicli would 
bo frr'(|iiciit(:(l liy lii'- (»i|)»ic«, c«pc- 
cially when lli'-y wic '* cHtmncd 
and held in mral, admitalion." And 
lictc it \v, likely that tlic ndlrvf liii 
l^/ixh iJiitiyaiiH wcrn chang'-d inio 
J'Ui,i^/i.\/i (ii/'sy I'.imyatiH by tin; male 
lieir of 'I'liomaH iiiarryin;^ a (Ii|)Hy, 
wlio,4e Hon or (.;r;iiidHori waH 'I'lioinaM, 
the "peltji! <,l(a|»iiiaii"; and whoae 
h'»ii 'rii'iiii;in, tlie " hraseycr/' waH 
til'- (;illi'-r rif jolin. All iheKe would 
(lo(iblleH;i ni.iiiy '■:iily, hut pciliaj)". 

not HO e:iily ;r, ['/lili, -.vli'i iiiuried 
li'-fori' lie \v;i.% niuciceii, ','> (;u aji if, 
known. 

In my r,oiiitiiuiii'',a,li')ii '/I ih'- ''itli 
Seplemlicr, I liiiiik I J.^n'i 'ii'iu;-!! on 
tin; «|iieHlion of proof an to iJiinyan 
haviri;^ been of ilie (iipsy rae'-. Isven 
wilh die limiled kiif>wl(;flge a,boiil the 
rar.e j^ener;dly, and enpeeially about 
the mixinre of Hh blood, l>elV>rc J 
published a liiHtory (;f the (/i|)«ieK, 
Sir Walter Scott (an excellent jiidgt;), 
with reference to the rank of hif, fa- 
ther'H hoiiHe, and nf»t. being JeWH, but 
tinker!'., naid that iJimyan was "mont 
probably a (^Jipny reelaimefl." Mr. 
Offor, an editor of I'.iinyan'H workH, 
K.iid that, "hin father miiHt have been 
a (iipny," Mr. l,eland'H inveHliga- 
lion and decision in that he " wa« a 
(iipsy," even apparently on the Hfjle 
ground of his having been a tinker. 
In regard l,o mys*e|f, Mr. I'.rown !uy» 
that J have " really ncnhing to go 



ii|i'<ii bill I'jiii yjoi''. own woid-i^ in 
will' li li'- •.:iy. lli:il III', !:iili'i'', lioir.'- 
w;i,ii ' ol llial i;inl-: ili:il r. ni' .ni'-.l ,-nid 
inOHt deH|)iK'-d ol ,M lli' Innilic)* of 
liiij tlic l.iii'l,' wliK.li iiiifMil '. imply 
iii'-;ui lli:il III . I.illii'r wax a p'loi ni;in 
ill :i, vill.i;/'; " (\) Accordilij'. lo Mr. 
I'.i'iwn, r.iinyan'ti a,diiiimiion, Ol uilicr 
irinni<lci\ li,'i'l no b'-;iiin;', 'in lin 
ii,ili')ii:ilily, vv-liil'- olli'ii, lliiiik il 
( Mil' III, IV'-, ;i|/:ii I lioni III', li.i vini'^ 
|,c-iii -A linl'i. I'nl Ml. IW'<wn di'l 
II', I I'lv nil i>S I'.iinyan'!', I;iiigii;igc, 
foi Ik- I'll '(III ihe moMt, imp'irlanf; 
pa,rt o( it, which wan tlia,t ol In-, ilr 
scent, which wan imrll laiiiivii lo iiiuiiv 
to li;i,ve been of a, liri,i a/nl iin o/iuilrr- 
iililr I'r/iiKiliiiii, wlii'h h.i'l no M-U^r- 
cncc to hiH "father being a |.'-'.i niin 
in a village," He at«o '<niiii.-'l 
I'.iinyan'w (pieHtion an lo In. " (a- 
Iher'rt hoiiHe " brint/ <,\ n'-i b'-ini/ 
Jew«, nning the woid •/'"• m b'.ih m 
HtanceH ; a diHciiHSiion lli;i.l, could ikH 
have taken place between a father 
and a won of any of tin- unliiinry 
rare of lOigliHlmi'-n. In tin, wa,y 
Mr. r.rown gelH rid of Ihe pio'il that 
jiroceeded from IJiinyan himMetf, by 
^im|,ly biu.hing it anide. When f 
H.-1W him in New York, I alluded to 
all. of I'.unyan'H adini<4Hion9, when ho 
replied, "Oh, that v.:\n be easily ev^ 
|)lained."* And wlim I mi'I il'it 
"one cannot uay m lMi,",lin'l iK.it. 
iJiinyan wa» a Oipny, (or hociely 
would not allow it," he made no re- 
ply, HO far as I noticed, but ;ip|)eare<l 
lo wince at the remark. I lia,d H(;me 
heHilation in giving Mr. iJiown an 
interview, for I waH nan .li'-'l th.ii In: 
did nol wi'.^h lo have tie- imili ;.l,'(iil 
r.unyan aflmiti.erl ; but 1 "<ncliided 
lha,t, h.iving wait him Home pain- 
phl'-lH, it would li.'tve been t\\i\n to rc- 
fuKe him u\w.\ Il lasted only about 



* " Easily explained," Indeed, by hlf 
father havlnt{ been " wimply u poor rrmn 
In a villaj/e," 

\ Mr, iSrowri in hi<< Icttrr a' bi'/vvl- 
rd^jeH li,'iviiii< recrivrd llie<;e (»,-imf<lilel«, 
I rl'id not nniirj \\Yim wilh the r>hject of 
cnlij^hteninK him on the «ti(>jcct under 
review. I have not been able to wee hl« 



i6 



u.is 70//.\ B r.vv.LV .i i'/r s \ ' ? 



tivo inimiios, at llio entrance of a 
banking -hmiso in l^roavKvay, and 
cndod with some remarks about his 
having found the wills of the Hun- 
yans ; not one word of which was to 
the point in question. His only 
motive for an interview seemed to be 
to gratity his curiosity and behold the 
person who would dare to " cast a 
stigma on Kunyan's memory." Now 
he says that there is no "ferocious 
prejudice of caste against the name 
of Ciipsy." and that "none of Hun- 
yan's admirers would object to his 
being shown to be a (>ipsy, if only 
sutiicient proof were adduced " ; while 
he has ignored everything that bears 
upon the subject, even what came i 
out of Hunvan's mouth.* In place 
of being inlhienced by evidence, he 
put forth the fanciful idea that he 
could not have been a Gipsy be- 
cause the name of l?unvan existed in 
England bet'ore the Gipsies arrived 
there. And now he maintains that 
Hunyan could not have been a Gipsy, 
because he owed his descent ** on 
the native side of the house" to 
Thomas l>onyon, a labourer or pub- 
lican or both, born about 150.;. with- 
out regard to the " marriages and 
movements" of perhaps tive or six 
generations till tlie birth of the im- 
mortal dreamer, who was bapti.:ed on 
the ^?oth November, io.:S. 

Hut tor the limited space at my 
disposal 1 would put a long string of 
questions to Mr. hrown, and suggest 
a course of action for him to undo 
the injurv he has done to Bunyan 
and the Gipsy race generally, partic- 



book ot\ the Kvunwu Festival. It is very 
likely that I wv->ui«.l tiiul matter iti it tor 
conuuent. 

* It reads very eandidly when it is 
said that " none of Runyau's adinire\-s 
would object to lu.> beiui; slunvu to bo a 
Gipsy, if only sntHcient proof wetv ad- 
duced," The real position is. that Hun- 
van's admissions as to what he was ftnd 
was not, and his callinj;" and svnivund- 
inj;s, show that he was of the Gipsy race ; 
at\d " prov^f " should be "adduced" to 
show that he was «,"/ that, but of the 
oniimin- /Wiy of Etiglishmen. 



ularly owii\g to his remarks about 
the illustrious pilgrim having been 
credited and circulated by the press 
in Great Britain, which complicates 
the question in all its bearings. + We 

f It would be interesting to learn from 
Mr. Uiown. \st. When, and under what 
circniustances. he took up this question 
in regard to liunyan ; 2</. What regard 
he paid to the sul)ject of the i>ipsies in 
jicneral, as publi>hed ; 3./. Whetlier ho 
made anv personal inquiries in rei;ard to 
it ; 4/.'^. Whether he read aiiythinj;, and 
what, in fiwourof Bunyan having been of 
the liipsy race ; 5M. How he came to 
maintain that because the name of Hun- 
yan existed in England before the iiip- 
sies arrived in it, therefore Hiiny;ui was 
not one of the race ; 0/4. Whether he 
knows of Gipsies bearing native sur- 
names, and even ot one with a foreign 
surnanie ; 7/,^. What reason he had for 
supposing that Thomas Honyon, in ij;4a, 
had no liipsy blood in his veins, or that 
his descendants for several generations 
did not pass into the Gipsy cvurent in 
society, as explained ; S<'^, Where Mr. 
Hrown resided before he settled at Hed- 
ford, and how long 1k> has been there. 
O.V;. What traditions he found in the town 
and neighboiuhood bearing on Hunyan's 
descent, and whether there are people 
there averse to its being asserted tltat 
Hunyan was what might be called of the 
<>rJfHi}ry n.!'i;v Knglish race ; to.'^. Are 
there none there who object to its being 
saivi that Hunyan's family was a bioken- 
down bi^anch of the aristocracy, titled or 
iMUitkHi. that most probably enteied En- 
I gland froi\> Norniai\dy, under William the 
Conqueror? 11 '-5. What .ue the icasons 
I for saving that Hunvan was w<>/ ot the 
Gipsy race ? f2fh. Might not .j«r pei-son 
be of the (.lipsy r.\ce. notwithstanding it 
was not even surmised, much less/r.>rr</, 
by any one acquainted with the liipsy 
subject, and nvuch more so by oi\e ap- 
parently totally ignorant of it? \xfh. 
Since Hnny.ut was an Englishman under 
any ciicumstanccs, why should any one 
claim l\im to have been entirely of the 
native or ordinary blood, till it Is proved 
that part of his blood belonged to the 
Gipsy race, that entered Guat Hritain 
not later than t5i.H» — no regard being 
shown to what he said he "was and was 
not, and his cilling and snrroundu\gs ' ? 
r4M. Has Mr. Hrown's object, from tirst 
to last, been exclusively that of proving 
Bunyan Hot to have been (,>f the ciipsy 
race? 15/4. In that case, should he not, 
while occupying the pulpit of Hunyan, 
look upot\ his " mission " as niost s.icied, 
and "l.iying aside every weight ai\d the 



AF//.V JOHN niiNYA/v A c/rsv? 



ly 



have iicrird timch of the Amrricnn 
John I'.rovvi) in connexion willi tlic 
cinan(:ip;itif)n of tin; Negroes in the 
United Slates, wliile the I'ln^Usk 
John I'rown aeeins to 1m: doing his 
best, directly or indirectly, to rivet 
the fetters of a social despotism on a 
larg«: btnly of his fellow-creatures in 
the British Islands. 

I have said ahove that 'I'homas 
lJony<;n and his wife, living in 1542, 
were (ip/xtrciilly (jf lh<: native I'*-n)iJish 



race, and made my rem.lrks to cor- 
res|Kni(l with that idea. I'.nt there 
was more than a possihi/ity of them 
having be<;n jjart of the original 
C/ipsy slock, of mixed blood, that 
arrived in (ireat liritain before 1506, 
and, like their race g(;nerally, as- 
sumed the surname of a " good fam- 
ily in the land," as I will illustrate at 
some length in my next cf;mmunica- 
tifni, which will make its ap[)(;arance 
in diif; time. 



IV. 



I said in my communication of the 
8th that tlicTe was more than a p(;s-.i 
sibility of Thomas l>(Miyon and his 
wife, in 1542, having been of the 
original stock of Oipsies, (;f mixed 
blf)od, that assumed the surname (jf 
a "good family in the land." As ' 
illustrative of this question, we have 
a writ of the Scots' parliament, of 
the 8th April, 1554, jjarrloning thir- 
teen Gipsies for the slaughter (;f 
Ninian Small, their names being the 
following :—"An(lro I«'aw, captain of 
th(! I'-gyptiaris, (leorge i'aw, Robert 
I'aw, and Anthony I'aw, his sons, 
Johnnc Kaw, Atulrew Cieorge Nich- 
oah, (ieorge Sebasiiane (Jolyne, 
(/eorgc Colyne, Julie (Jolyne, Johnne 
Colyne, James I law, Johnnc /iroivne, 
and George Jhowne, I'",gy|;tians. " 1 
'I'here being thus Oipsies of the name ■ 
fjf Jiroivn (and, orldly enough, one 
called John /frown), in Scotland be- ; 
fore 1554, we should have no diffi- I 
culty in believing that there were, or ; 
might have been, some in Iu)gland 
of the name of Jionyon in 1542. 
The only native name assiimefl by \ 
the tribe in Scotland before 1540,1 
when they were noticed officially, 



sin which doih §0 easily bead him," 
rIvc no slccf^ to hi» cyc» or slumber to 
liis cyclicJR" lill he w;ih saiisricc! wiio 
Hunyari rcnily was, ari'l acknowledge him 
actorfJiri^ly ? 

*Dat(!fl J3tli SejUcrnh'-r, ;8^<2. 



was Uailyow, or I'ailli*;. And how 
did we have (/ijjsies in .Scotland of 
the name of JSroivn (apparently the 
only native name, except IJailliej, in a 
jjublic document before 1554? be- 
tween 1506 and 1579 was the "gold- 
en age" f;f the fiij^sies in Scotland, ex- 
cepting (nominally, at least) the year 
1541-2, for, on the 6th June, J54J, 
they were ordered to leave the realm 
within thirty days, on pain of death, 
fjwing to an attack made by them 
on James V. while roaming (;ver the 
ccnintry in disguise, " lint the king, 
whom, accorrling to tradition, they 
had personally so deeply offended, 
dying in the following y(;ar (ic^/\2), a 
nr;w reign brought new prf;spec,ts to 
the flenounced wanderers" (His., 
p. 107). 'ihere is a tradition that 
the (iipsies were in Scotland before 
1460, for McLellan of l5ombie hap- 
pening to kill a chief of some 
" Sarac.ensor (ii|)sie» from Ireland," 
was reinstated in the I'.arony of 
I'ombie, and took ff^r his crest a 
Moor's head, and " Think on " for his 
motto. And it is a tradition amongst 
all the Scottish Gipsies that their an- 
cestors came by way of Ireland into 
Scotland, ilow, then, were there 
Oipsies described, in a writ of the 
Scots' parliament, by the names of 
John and Oeorge Brown in 1554? 
In no other a|>|>arent way, during 
their " golden age," than that a native 



i8 



WAS yoi/x Brxyj.v a g/psv? 



or natives of that name had married 
into the tribe, and that the two 
Browns, perhaps brothers, mentioned 
were the issue, and grown-up men 
at that ; so that the marriage could 
jiot have taken place later tlian 1533. | 
and probably considerably earlier. , 
There was little chance of a Scotch I 
lawyer describing these two Browns 
as " Egyptians " unless they had 
been the children of a native father, 
or had previously assumed the sur- \ 
name of Brown ; the first being the , 
most probable.* 

If we can imagine that William j 
Bonyon. the first of the name men- 
tioned by Mr. Brown, had been a 
native of Kngland, and, like the 
Scotch Brown, had married a Gipsy, j 
we would have found Thomas, in 
1542, a member of the tribe. It 

* There may be some doubt that 
Towla Bailyow, mentioned in a writ of 
the Scots' parliament in 1540, was a j 
Baiilie according to the modern spelling } 
of the word. In that case, the first Gip-I 
sies mentioned otlicially in Great Britain | 
with lull native names, seem to have 
been John Brown and George Brown, | 
as found in a writ of the Scots' parliament | 
of the Sth April, IJ54. In the JJistcry of 
the GiJ'siesl find the following: — 1 

" I am further inclined to think that it ' 
would be about this period, and chietiy ' 
in consequence of these bloody enact- 
ments, the Gipsies would, in general, 1 
assume the ordinary Christian and sur- j 
names common at that time in Scotland, j 
And their usual sagacity pointed out to I 
them the advantages arising from taking 1 
the cognomens of the most powerful I 
families in the kingdom, whose influence | 
would afibrd them ample protection as 1 
adopted members of their respective 
clans. In support of my opinion of the j 
origin of the surnames of the Gipsies of j 
the present day, we find that the most | 
prevailing names among them are those 
of the most intluential of our noble fami- [ 
lies of Scotland, such as Stewart, Gor- ! 
don. Douglas, Graham, Ruihven Hamil- 
ton. Drummond. Kennedy, Cunningham. 
Montgomery, Kerr, Campbell. Maxwell, 
lohnstone, Ogilvie, McDonald, Robert- 
stm. Grant, Baillie, Shaw, Burnet, Bnncn, 
Keith, etc." To that I added that "the 
English Gipsies say that native names 
were assumed by tlieir race la conse- 
quence of the proscription to which it 
was subjected." — (,p. 117.) 



was not necessary that he should 
have been 40 years old in 1542, or 
that the property of " Bunyan's End" 
" had probably been in the possei- 
sion of the family long before 1542 "; 
or that William had not died in mid- 
dle life, leaving Thomas a young 
man. born of a Gipsy mother. Even 
William might have been one of the 
original Gipsies, of mixed blood, that 
is, "such a 'foreign tinker' as is 
alluded ti^ in the Spanish Gipsy edicts, 
and in the Act of Queen Elizabeth, 
in which mention is matle of ' stran- 
gers,' as distinguished from natural- 
born subjects, being wiih the Gip- 
sies It is therefore very likely 

that there was not a drop of common 
English blood in Bunyan's veins. 
John Bunyan belongs to the world at 
large, and England is only entitled to 
the credit c>f the formation of his 
character" (p. 518). He might have 
assumed the name of Bonyon and 
bought "Bunyan's End," when the 
severe law was passed by Henry 
Vni. against the race about 1530. 
Thomas might have been an ordinary 
native of England and mairied a 
Gipsy who was a " brewer and baker," 
possibly of the second generation of 
the race born in England. She 
seems to have been a " lawless lass" 
of some kind, for 1^1 r. Brown says 
that it is on recoid that "between 
1542 and 1550 she was fined six or 
eight times for breaking the assize of 
beer and bread." On this head I 
said in the l^isquisition on the C«ip- 
sies : — '' Considering what is popular- 
ly understood to be the natural dis- 
position and capacity of the Gip^ies, 
we would readily conclude that to 
turn innkeepers would be the most 
unlikely of all their employments ; 
vet that is very common" (p. 467), 
all over Europe from almost the day 
of their arrival in it. It is no un- 
common thing for English Gip>ies 
who have the means to buy a small 
house with a little ground attached 
on landing in America, even should 
they not always occupy it personally. 
I have been informed of several such 



IFAS JOHM BUN YAM A GIPSY? 



19 



purchases, and knew the owner of 
one " homestead " intimately, and was 
often in his house. And this seems 
to have been a trait in the character 
of the su[)erior (lipsies of mixed 
blood in (Jreat liritain, perhaps from 
the time of their arrival. 

With regard to the pedigree of 
John I'unyan, the most probable one 
seems to be the following : — William 
]{onyon and his wife were ai)|)arcntly 
ordinary English people, which would 
make Thomas of the same race.* 



* Perhaps I admitted too much when I 
said that " William Ronyon and his wife 
were apparently ordinary lOnj^lish peo- 
ple," fcjr they need not necessarily have 
been that, as I have shown. Had they 
been such, the tradition of it would soon 
have died out in their Gipsy descendants 
of nii.xed blood but for the little property 
that remained in the family ; for the as- 
sociations of descent from the native race 
are not pleasant to the triije when they 
consider the hard feelinj^s which it has 
entertained for their Gipsy blood. 

James IV. of Scotland, when intro- 
ducing " Anthonius Gawino, Earl of Lit- 
tle Etjypt, and the other afflicted and 
lamentable tribe of his retinue," to his 
uncle, the Kin^of Denmark, in 1506, said 
that they "had lately arrived on the 
frontiers of our kinj^dom " ; so that it is 
uncertain at what time before 1506 some 
of the tribe had made their appearance 
without bein;( recorded in a public docu- 
ment. The .Scottish kinj^ believed that 
as " Denmark was nearer to K;^yiJt than 
Scotland," a f^reater number lA the Gip- 
sies sojourned in it ; and that his uncle 
would know more about them than he 
did. If this style of reasoning was cor- 
rect, En^fland must have received Gipsies 
before Scotland, for it was "nearer to 
Egypt than Scotland." — History of the 
Gipsies, p. 99. 

Speaking of the "standing" of the 
leading Gipsies in .Scotland between 1506 
and 1579, the author of the History wrote 
as ffjl!f)vvs : — 

" It is evident that the Gipsies in Scot- 
land at that time were allowed to punish 
the criminal members of their own tribe 
according to their own peculiar laws, 
customs and usages, without molesta- 
tion. And rt cannot be supposed that 
the ministers of three or four succeeding 
monarchs would have suffered their sov- 
ereigns to be so much imposed on as to 
allow them to put their names to public 
documents, styling poor and miserable 
wretches, as we at the present day im- 



Uis wife — the "lawless brewer and 
baker" — was either of the native race 
or of a superior class of mixed ( )i|)sics, 
perhai)s of the second generation bom 
in iMigland. If she was the former, 
the male heir of Thomas married a 
(}il)sy while he kejn his little wayside 
public-house, leading to their issue 
Ijeing turned into the Ciip.sy current 
in society. Thus the little pro[)erty 
of " liunyan's l^nd " (at least the 
cottage) woidd remain in the family, 
leading to a will being made to be- 
fjueath it from generation to genera- 
tion. " Petty chajnnen and tinkers" 
fusing brazier instead of tinker) are 
the happiest words that could be use<l 
to describe n)any Oipsies of mixed 
blood in England to-day. 

A remark in the Graphic for the 
26th August, in adopting Mr. lirown's 
theory that all that sprung from 
Thomas Jionyon, in 1542, were or- 
dinary natives of England, makes it 
very plain what is the motive for not 
having it said that liunyan was of the 
Oipsy race, viz. : to show that his 
were " positively respectable " ])eo- 
ple, and not " tinkering Gi[)sies." 
Petty chapmen and linkers, if of the 
native race, would be "positively re- 
spectable," but not if they had had a 
"dash " of Oipsy blood in their veins 
(which tni^ht have improved them,) 

agine them to have been, ' Lords and 
Earls of Little Egypt.' .... I am dis- 
posed to believe that Anthonius Gawino 
in 1506, and John Faw in 1540, would 
personally as individuals, that is, as 
Gijjsy ' Rajahs,' have a very respectable 
and imposing appearance in the eyes of 
the fjfFicers of the Crown " (p. 107). 

Although he says that "the linglish 
government had not been so easily nor 
so long imposed on as the kings of .Scot- 
land, and the authorities of Europe gen- 
erally " (p. 91), we can easily imagine 
that the princijial Gijjsies at least occu- 
pied a pretty good position among the 
English people generally. If Bailyow in 
1540 represented the native name of 
liaillie (as it is believed to have done), 
we could have William Bonyon, who 
died in 1542, one of the original Gipsies, 
most likely of mixed Ijlood ; and we cer- 
tainly had "John Hrown and George 
Hrown, Egyptians," before 1554. 



20 



ji'AS yoj/x JWA'v.i.y ./ o/rsv/ 



an*.! bfki by the Gipsy connexion, if 
for no other reason than that the 
white blood would have disowned 
them if they had known of its exist- 
ence. In this way tlu'v would be out 
off from the native race, or would 
mix with it no further than was un- 
avoidable ; living thus as CJipsies 
/;;<■(';;"., or as outcasts, for that is the 
right word to use till the C>ipsy blood 
becomes acknowledged by the rest 
of the world. The l?m//u\- " let the 
cat out of the bag." and somewhat 
illustrated what 1 meant when 1 
spoke of the " terocious prejudice of 
caste against the nan\e of Gipsy." 

1 refer to the Disijuisition on the 
Gipsies and my subsequent writings 
on John Bunyan and the Gi[>sies, 
and add a few extracts from the Dis- 
quisition ; all of which should have 
been studied by Mr. Brown before 
" putting his foot into " the subject 
in the way he has done, for that is of 
too sacred a nature to be treated 
factiously or capriciously. 

" The world gvnorally has never 
even thought about this subject. When 
I have spoken to people puMnisouously 
in roganl to it, they have replied. ' We 
suppose that the (>ipsies as they have 
settled in lite have g\>t lost among the 
general population' : than which noth- 
ing can be nioiv unfountled as a matter 
of fact, or riJiculous as a matter of 
theory " {\k 4>4\ — " What ditnculty can 
lIuMe thejxtorebe in underst.uuling how 
a man can be a Gipsv whose blood is 
mixed, even * dreadfully mixed," as the 
English Gipsies express it ? Gipsies 
are l>ipsies. let their blood be mixed as 
much as it may. whether the intn.iduc- 
tion of the native blood may have come 
into the family through the male or the 
female line. In the descent of .... the 
Gipsy race, the thing to he transmitteii 
is not merely a question of family, but 
a race distinct from any particular 
family " (p. 451). — " The nrincinle of 
pivgression, the passing tlirough one 
phase of history into atiother. while the 
race maintains its identity, holds gvod 
with the Gipsies as well as with any 
other people" y\ 414).— " T,'\ke a 
Gipsy trom any country in the world 
you may, and the t'eeling of his being a 
Gipsy comes as naturally to him as tioes 
the nationality of a Jew to a Jew; al- 



though we will naturally give him a 
moiv detVaite name to distinguish him, 
such as an English, Welsh. Scotch, or 
Irish l^.ipsy, or by whatever country 
of which the Gipsy h.q^pens to be a 
native " (,p. 447V — " r>ut it is impossible 
tor any one to give an account of the 
Gipsies in Scotland from the year 1 sot) 
down to the jiresent time. This much, 
however, can be said of them, that they 
arc^ as much Gipsies now as ever they 
were ; that is. the Gipsies of to-day are 
the ivpresentatives ot the race as it ap- 
peared in Scotland three centuries and 
a half ago. and hold themselves to be 
Gipsies iiow, as indeeil they always 
will do " (p. ^66). — ■• The admission of 
the good UKU^ .illuded to osts a tlood 
of light upon the history of the Scottish 
Gijisy race, shrouded as it is from the 
eye of the general population : but the 
intormation given by him was apt to 
tall tiat upon the ear of the ordinary 
native unless it was accomjunied by 
some such exposition of the subject as 
is given in this work. Still, we can 
g^ather fivm it where Gipsies are to be 
tound. what <> Scottish Gipsy is. and 
what the race is eap.\ble ot. and what 
might be expivted of it. if the prejudice 
of their fcllow-creatuix\s was withdrawn 
from the race, as «,listinguished from the 
various classes into which it may be 
divided, or, 1 should rather say, the jx-r- 
sonal conduct of each Gipsy indivulu- 
ally" (p. 415'). — " It is a subject, how- 
ever, which I have tound some ditlieulty 
in getting people to understanil. One 
cannot see how a pei^son can be a Ginsy 
• btvause his tath.er was a i-espoclanle 
man"; another, ' because his father was 
an old soldier"; and another c.Tiinot 
see • how it necessarily t'ollows that a 
person is a Gipsy tor the reason that 
his paivnts weiv Gipsies " "' (jj. 505). 

Apart from the prejudice of caste 
now existing against the Gipsies, and 
the novelty of the light in which the 
race is now presented, there should 
be no ditlieulty in understanding tl>e 
subject in all its bearings. Every 
other race entering England has had 
justice done to it ; and the same 
shoidd not be withheld from people 
who claim to be " nuMubers of the 
(.^ipsv tribe." although their blood, 
perhaps in the most of instances, is 
more of the ordinary than of the 
Gipsy race. 



EvHR since entering Grc.it liritain, aI)Out the year l co6, tht 
Ciipsies iiavc been drawing into ilieir body the blood of the ordin 
nry inhabitants and conforming to their ways; and so prolific lias 
the race been, that there cannot be less than 250,000 Gipsies of all 
castes, colours, characters, occirpations, degrees of education, cul- 
ture, and position in life, in the liriti.sh Isles alone, and possibly 
double that numiier. There are many of the same race in tiic 
United States of America. Indeed, there have been Ciipsies in 
America from nearly the first day of its settlement; for many of 
the race were banished to the plantations, often for very triflin/' 
offences, and sometimes merely for being by " habit and repute 
Egyptians." But as the Ciipsy race leaves the tent, and rises to 
civilization, it hides its nationality from the rest of the world, so 
great is the prejudice against the name of (iipsy. In Europe and 
America together, there cannot be less than 4,000,000 Gipsies in 
existence. _,j.m Hunyan, the author of tlic celebrated Pdj>ri.m's 
r*fO/jress, WHO one of this singular peo[)le, as will be conclusively 
shown in the present work. The philosf)phy of the existence of 
the Jews, since the dispersion, will also be discussed and e:.i.abli;.lied 
in it. 

When the "wonderful story " nf \\\i: Gipsies is told, as it ought 
to be told, it constitutes a work of interest to many classes of rearl- 
crs, being a subject unique, distinct from, and unknown to, the rest 
of the human family. In the present work, the race has been treated 
of 80 fully and elaborately, in all its aspects, as in a great meas- 
ure to fill and satisfy the mind, instead of being, as heretofore, little 
better than a myth to the understanding of the most intelligent 
' person. 

The history of the Gipsid, when thus comprehensively treated, 
forms a study for the most advanced and cultivated mind, as well 
as for the youth whose intellectual and literary character is still to 
be formed; and furnishes, among other things, a system of science 
not too abstract in its nature, and having for its subject-matter the 
strongest of human feelings and sympathies. The work also seeks 
to raise the name of Gipsy out of the dust, where it now lies; 
while it has a very important bearing on the conver.ion of the 
[cwG, the advancement of Christianity generally, and the develop 
tncnt oi historical and moral science. 

London, October \rjh, 1865. 



SECOND EDITION. 

SIMSON'S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES. 

575 Paces, Crown 8vo. Pkice. $:.oo. 



NOTICES OF THE AMEKIOAN PRESS. 

Kntional Qnarterlj/ ReiHev.—'* The title of this work craves 
fi correct idea of its character ; tlie matter fully justifies it. Even in its 
original form it was the most intert^tintj ni\J reliable history of the 
Gipsies with which we were acquainted. Pnt it is now nnich en- 
Irtr>>ed, and broui;ht down to the present lime. The disquisition on the 
past, present, and future of that singular race, added l>y the eilitor, 
greatly enhances the vahie of the work, for it embodies the results of 
extensive research and careful investigation." " Tlse chapter on the Gijv 
sy lauiiuatte should be read by all who take any interest either inciMti- 
parative pliiloU>r!:y or ethnoloey ; for it is much inort> curious and ia 
structive than most people would expect from the nature of the subject. 
'l"he volume is well prin'ed and neatly bound, and has the advantage o! 
a copious alohabotical index." 

Coitgreaational Jievietv. (Biston.) — "The senior partner \n 
the autliorship ot this book was a Scotcb.man who made it his lifelong; 
l)leasure to jjo a ' Gipsy hunting/ to use his own phrase. 11(> was a per 

sonal friend of Sir Walter Scott Ilis ei\tiiusiasm was o-fnuine, his 

diiii^ence great, his snijacity remarkable, and his discoveries rewardinjr" 
" The boi>k is undoubtedly the fullest and n»ost reliable which our l«u 
jrnajre c^mtalns on the subject." "This volume is valuable for its in- 
struction, and exceed in rrly amusinfranecdotic.allr. It overruns with tlie 
humorous." " 'I'he sub^ject in its prtvsenl form is novel, and we fifely 
add, very sensational." " Indeed, the l>ook assures xis that onr country 
is full of tills people, mixed up as they have Kvoiue, by marriajje. wifJi 
all the l']iirv)pean stocks during the lust thrix> centuries. The amah.: 'ma 
tion has done much to mergfe them in the general current of UKHlern 
educaiion and civilization ; yet they retain their langiiage wiih closest 
tenacity, as a sort of Freemason medium of ijiterconnnunion ; and 
while they never are willing to own their origin ami>ng oiitsiders, they 
are very proud of it among themselves." " AVe had reganUnl them as 
entitled to considerab e antiquity, but we now find that ttiey wei-t< nono 
other thai\ the ' mix<d multitude ' which accompanied the Hebrew ex- 
cxlovKx. XIl 08) under .Moses— straggling or disaffected Egyptians, who 
went along to ventilate their discontent, or to improve their fortunes. 
, . . , We are not prepared to take issue with these authors on any of 
the points raised by them " 

IMetfMdiftf Quarterlf/ lie-iuew.—" Have we flipsles amoiiif 
03 t Yea, verily , if Mr. Simson is to be believed, they swarm our country 
in secret legions. There is no place on the four quarters of the gloK< 
where some of thcTU have not penetrated. Even in New Ex\gland a sly 
Qipsy girl will enter the factory as employe., will by her ulhinuueuts 
win a young Jonathan to marry her. and in due season, the "cute gen- 
tleman will find himself the father of a ytniug brood of intense Hipsit»n 
Tho mother will have openetl to her young progt^ny the mystery and 

' " (i) 



NOTICES OF THE AMEIJCAN PRESS. 

tilt mmance of its lineage, will have disclose*! its birth-riglit connection 
with a secret brotluM-hood, whose profounder Freemasonry is based on 
blood. hintoriCHlly f^xtendinj; itself into tli*' inoHt dim antiquity, and 
5?ef)(?ru|.l)ically upreadiiij; over most ot the earlli. The tahcinuii<ji)H ol 
this mystic tie are wonderful. Afraid or athamed to reveal the secret 
Uj the outside world, the youn^ (iipny is inwardly intensely proud oC 
his unique nobility, and is very likely to despite his alien father, wlioia 
of course {r'ad to k<'ep tlie late discovered secret from the world. Hence 
dear reader, you know not but your next nei^rhhrmr is a (Ji|iHy." " 'J'he 
volume before us possesses a rare interest, both from the unicjue cluirac- 
terof tlje wubject, and from the absence of nearly any other wjurce of 
full information. It is the rei-ult of observation fr<*m real life." The 
lan;^uaf;e "is spoken with varying? dialects in diti'erent countries, but 
wiih standard purity in Hunj^ary. It is the precious inheritance and 
proud peculiarity of the (iipsy, which he will never forget and seldom 
reveal, 'l"he varied and skillful mauceuvres of .Mr. Simson to purloin or 
wheedle out a small vocabulaiy, with the various eO'ects of the ojn'ra^ 
tion on the minds and actions of the (iipsies, furnish many an amusing 
narrative in these paj/es," " Persecutions of the most cruel chaructiT 
have •■mbittered and barbarized them. . i;ven now . . . they do not 
realize the kindly feeling of enlif^htened minds toward them, and view 
with fierce suspicion every approach desij^ned to draw from lh<!mthe se- 
crets of their history, habits, laws and laiijfuafre." " The age ot facial 
caste is passing away. Modern (JhriKtianity will refuse to t<jlerate the 
spirit of hostility and oppression based on feature, colour, or lineage." The 
"book i.s an intended first step for the iraprovemimt of the race that forms 
its subject, and every magnanimous s])irit must wish that it may prove 
not the last. We heartily c<jmm(;nd the work to our readers as not only 
full of fascinating details, but abounding with points of iutere.it to the 
beievolent Christian heart." " The general spirit of the work is em- 
inently enlightened, liberal, and humane." 

Ei'iiiigelicdl (Jufirterli/ Jteview. — '"ihe Gipsies, their race 
ami 1/uiguage have always excited a more than ordinary interest. The 
work l;efore us, ai)parently the result of careful research, is a rximpre- 
herisive history of this singular people, abounding in marvelous inci- 
dents and curious information. It is highly instructive, and there is 
apjiendcd a full and most careful index — so important in every work." 

ytitional L^reftnnsoti. — " We feel confident that our rea<lers 
will .-elish the following concernin;; the (iipsies, from the I'-ritish Ma- 
6«nif OrguE : That an article on Uipsyieiii is i;ot out of place in this .Mag- 
azine will b(! a/lmitted by every onn wjio knows anythingof tlie history, 
tiianni-rs, and customs of these strange wan<lerers among the nations of 
the eanh. The Freemasons have a language, words, and signs peculiar 
to themselves ; so have the Gipsies. A Freemason has in every country 
b friend, and ia every climate a home, secured to him by the niyslic in- 
fluence of that worldwide ass^jciation to whicli he belongs ; similar are 
the privilog-B of the Gipsy. But here, of course, the analogy ceases 
Freemasonry is an Order bande<l together for purposes of the highest 
benevolence Gipsy ism, we fear, has been a source of constant trouble 
and inconvenience to European nations. Tiie interest, therefore, wliich 
as Mae^ins we may eeince in the Gipsies arises jjrincipally, we may say 
wholly, from the fact of their being a secret society, and also from the 
fact tliat many of them are enrolh-d in our lodges. . . . There av 



NOTICES OF TKE AMERICAN PRESS. 

In the CTmted Kingdom a vnst multitude of mixed Gipsies, difFerlng 
very little In outward appearance, manners, and customs from onlinary 
Britons ; l>ut in heart tboroug-h (Jipsies, as carefully «ind jealously 
puardinof tlioir lanfjuaixe and secrets, as we do the secrets of the Masonic 
Onier." " Mr. Siinson makes masterly establishment of the fact that 
John Bunyan, the world-renowned author of the ' Pilgrim's Pr<.>gre88,' 
was descended from Gipsy blood." 

Ket(< York I tide pond cut. — " Such a book ie the History of tht> 
Gipsies. Every one who lias a fondness for the acquisition of out-of tlie- 
way knowledge, chiefly for tiie pleasure atiordod by its possession, will 
like this book. It contains a mass of facts, of stories, and of legends 
connected with the Gipsies ; a variety of theories as to their origin . . . 
and various interesting incidents of adventures among these mmlern 
Ishmaelites. There is a great deal of curitms information to be ob- 
tained from 'his history, nearly all of which will be new to Americans." 
" It is singular that so little attention has been heretofore given to this 
particidar topic ; but it is probably owing to the fad that Gipsies are so 
careful to keep outsiders Uom a knowledge of their language that they 
even deny its existence." " The history Is just the book with wlilch to 
occupy one's Idle moments ; for, whatever else It lacks, it certainly Is 
not wanting In interest." 

New York Observer. — " Among the peoples of the world, the 
Gipsies are the most mysterious and romantic, llielr origin, modes of 
life, and habits have been, until quite recently, ratlier conjectural than 
known. Mr Walter Simson, after years of investigation and study, 
produced a hlstt^ry of this remarkable people which Is unrivalled for the 
amount of Infomuttion which It conveys in a manner adajUed to excite 
the deei>est Interest." "We are glad that Mr. Jatiies ^lm8on has not 
felt the same timidity, but has given the book to tue public, having en- 
riched It with many noti's, an able introduction, and a distiuiftitlonuiKin 
the i)ast, present, and future of the (iipsy race." " Of the Gipsies in 
tipain we have already learned much froui the work of Borrow, but thia 
is a more thorough and elaborate treatise upon liipsy life In general, 
though lari^ely devoted to the tribe as It appeared In England and Scot 
land." " Such are some views and opinions respecting a curious jn^ople, 
of whose history and customs Mr. Simson has given a deeply interest- 
ing delineation." 

New YorJc Metliodiaf.—" The Glp.-^les present one of the moet 
rem.arkable antimalies In the history of the hunuui race. Though they 
have lived among European nations for centuries, forming In some dis- 
tricts a pronunent element In the population, they have succeeded in 
keeping themselves separate in social relations, customs, language, and 
in a measure, in government, and excludintr strangers from real knowl- 
edge of the character of their communities and organizations. Scarcely 
more is known of them by the world in general than was know when 
they first made their appearance among civiliztxl nations." " Another 
curious thing advanced by Mr. Simson is that of the perpetuity of the 

race Ue thinks that it never dies out, and that Gipsies, howevei 

much thoy may intermarry with the world's people, and adopt the hab- 
its of clvlliEation, retnaln Gipsies, preserve the language, the Gi|>sy mixle 
of thought, and loyalty to t]:e race and Its traditions to remote genera- 
^'oixs. E*5 wirk turns. In fact, upon tht>se two thtxiries, and tbo Inol 



NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 

dents, lacta, and citations from hintory with which it abounds, a,ro ail 
Bkillfally used in support of them " " Tiiere arc some facts of interest 
in relation to tiie Gipsies in Scotland and America, wliicli are brought 
oiitciuite fully in Mr. Slmson's Ixjolt," wliich "al)Ounds in novel and 
interestiner matter . . . and will well re|>ay jjerusal." " Pertinent anec- 
Jlotes, illustratinfr tlie habita and craft of the (jlipsies, may be picked up 
fit random in any part of the book." 

Neiv York Evenivf/ rost.~" The editor corrects some popular 
notions in le^rard to the habits of the (iipsies. They are not now, iu 
the main, tiie wanderers they uscfl to be. Throufjli intermariia<re with 
other p(!ople, and from otlier causes, tlicy liavc; adopted more stadonary 
modes of life, and have assimilaK^d to the manners of the countries in 

which they live As the editor of this volume tays : 'They 

carry the lanjrnajre, the associations, and the sympathies of their race, 
and their jMiculiar feelin:,'8 toward the community with them ; and, as 
re.sident3 of towns, have jjreater facilities?, from others of their race re- 
sidin<r near them, for perpetuating,' their language, than when strolling 
over the country.' " " We have no space for such full extracts as we 
should like to give." 

Netv Torfc Journal of Commerce.— "Wa have seldom 
found a more readable book than Simson's History of the Gipsies. A largw 
part of the volume is necessarily devoted to tha local liistories of fami- 
lies in I'lngland (Scotland), but these go to form part of one of the most 
iuieresting chapters of human history." " We commend the book as 
very readable, and giving mucli instruction on a curious sulyect." 

New York Times.—" Mr lias done good service to tlie 

American public Ijy rei)roducing here this very interesting and valuable 
volume." " The work is more interesting than a romance, and tliat it i.s 
full of facts is very easily seen by a glance at the index, which is very 
minute, and adds greatly to the value of the book." 

New York Albion. — "An extremely curious work is a History 
of the («ipsios." " The wildest scenes in ' Laveugro,' as for instance the 
fight with the Flaming Tinman, are comparatively tame l)eside some 
of the incidents narrated here." 

Jloiirs at Home (now Scrihner's Monthlii).—"Ye&rs 

ago we read, witli an interest we shall never forget, Borrow's book on 
the Gi|)sie8 of Si)ain. We have now a history of this mysterious race 
as it exists in the British Ir^lands, which, though v/ritten before Boi^ 

row's, has just been published. It is the result of much time and 

[latient lalior, and is a valuable Cfmtribution toward a comijlete history 
of this extraordinary people. The Gipsy race and the Gi|)sy language 
are subjects of much interest, socially and ethnologically." "He esti- 
mates the number of Gipsies in Great Britain at 250,000, and the whole 
number in Europe and America at 4,000,000." "The work is what it 
profesres to be, a veritable history — a history in which Gipsy life has 
been stripped of everything pertaining to fiction, so that the reader 

will see depicted in their true character this strange people And 

yet, these pages of sober history are crowded with facts and incidents 
Btranger and more thrilling than the wildest imaginings of the roman- 
tic school." 

NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER. 



NOTICES OF THE BRITISH PRESS. 



THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES ANO JOHN BUNYAN, AND THE 
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA AND THE GIPSIES. 

•' In this pamphlet Mr. James Simson again does battle in support of his con- 
tention that Bunyan was a Gipsy— a thesis first promul>;ated by him in an elabo- 
rate work on the Gipsies, published in 1865. He is indignant at Mr. Froude for 
ignoring the discussion of the question in his recent biography of Bunyan, and he 
comments in strong terms on the dicta of Mr. Francis H. Groome, in the article 
'Gipsies,' in the new edition of the Encvclo/>cTdia Britannica, that John Bunyan 
'does not appear to have had one drop of Gipsy blood.'" "Mr. Simson's tractate 
will be perused with deep interest by all students of the customs and history of the 
Gipsies.'" — Fdinpur^h dutmnt, iW'X'i'wo^r ■^, iSSo. 

"In this pamphlet Mr. James Simson, editor of Simson s History of the Gij'sies, 
states his grounds for believing that John Bunyan was a Gipsy, and invokes the 
assistance of the Universities to investigate the matter and put it beyond the pos- 
sibility of doubt. It may not matter much whether or not the ' immortal dreamer ' 
was a Gipsy and we do not think Mr. Simson attaches any great importance to 
the circumstance /c-rj^. What he aims at, we believe, is to stir up some interest 
in the Gipsy race, and this he thinks may be done were the public to have their 
sympathies awakened by the fact that John Bunyan was a descendant of it. By 
way of supplement, Mr. Simson criticises some statements made in an article is 
the £ncyc/i'}ceifia Britannica, on the Gipsies. The curious in the subject of Gipsy 
lore will doubtless tind in the pamphlet matter that will interest them." — Perthshire 
Advertiser, Cktober2.Z, iSSo. 

" Mr. Simson suggests, and supports, on arguments that have the highest bear- 
ing on anthropological questions, the theory that John Bunyan was a Gipsy. The 
great secret that civilised Europe has even now amongst it a few individuals who 
are descended from a Hindoo race, and are capable, by reason of the fact that they 
have a particularly original soul of their own, to reconcile some of the dilhculties 
between the eastern and the western schools of thought, may be the real future fact 
of modern anthropology. The ditticulty is, of course, where and how to find the 
Gipsies. We have been much pleased with Mr. Simson's pamphlet. It is not 
every writer who has treated the subject in his philosophical manner ; and we are 
glad to perceive that he strongly accents the fact that a person may be a Gipsy 
and yet be entirely ignorant [not absolutely so] of the Gipsy language. Evidently 
Mr. Simson has studied anthropological problems at fir?i hand, and apart from the 
speculators who have regarded language as the first key to the science of man." — 
Fublic Opinion^ October 15, 18S0. 

CHARLES WATERTON, Naturalist. 
"That Mr. Simson had a duty — to himself as well as to the public — to perform 
in justifying his previous remarks about Charles Wutovton, by writing this mono- 
graph, is unquestionable. Although it is a somewhat ditlicult task unsparingly to 
point out the mistakes and shortcomings of a man, when he can no longer defend 
himself, without seeming to be guilty of an oflence against the old rule — Xi/ nisi 
b.'num de /mrluis — Mr. Simson may fairly claim credit for having adhereil to the 
Shakespearian advice in regard to fault-finding ; for, if he has extenuated nothing, 
he has set down naught in malice. The example of Charles Waterton, country 
gentleman and naturalist, may serve as a useful warning to students of natural 
history, by teaching them that only the most patient investigation and careful retlec- 
tion can produce results that will be of real and permanent value to science. They 
have here the example of a man who had most excelleiu opportunities for such in- 
vestigations, as well as the strongest taste for their pursuit, and who, by an exact 
and systematic method of study, might have made most important additions to our 
knowledge of natural history. But by inaccurate observation, by a certain loose- 
ness of staten)ent, and by taking things for granted instead of personally verifying 
them, he has greatly diminished the value of his labours. Mr. Simson, though 
his task is to set right the unduly high estimate iu which the squire of Walton Hall 
has been held as a m.m of science, shows an appreciation ot the strong points of 
his character that completely takes awav any appearance of censoriousness ; and 
his work incidentally affords an interesting study of the man himself, who, in his 
personal life and his enthusiastic devotion to natural history, showed a strong 
individuality that is quite refreshing in this age of conventionalities." — Aberdeen 
yournal, August 30, iSSo. 



AMERICAN EDITION OF 1878, WITH APPENDIX. 
210 Pages, Octavo, Cloth. Price, $1.25. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATURAL JIISTORY, 

AND TAPERS ON OTHER SUBJECTS. 
BY JAMES SIMSON, 

EDITOR OF SIMSON'S " HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES." 



NOTICES OF THE BRITISH PRESS. 

Dublin University Magazine, July, 1875. 

"The principal articles in this volume that have reference to natural history 
originally appeared in Land and Water, and are, in many respects, hif^hly interest- 
ing. Concerning vipers and snakes, we are presented with a good deal of informa- 
tion that is instructive, not only as regards their habits generally, but also with re- 
spect to points that are in dispute among naturalists." " For instance, it is a vexed 
question whether, under any circumstances, the young retreat into the stomach 
[inside] of the mother snake. A great authority, f?] Mr. Frank Auckland, affirms 
that they do not ; while our author is as positive that they do. And he certainly, 
with reason, contends that the question is entirely one of evidence, and, therefore, 
should be settled ' as a fact is proved in a court of justice ; difficulties, suppositions, 
or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony.' " " In support of his 
own views, Mr. Simson has collected a large body of evidence that undoubtedly 
appears authentic and conclusive." " Of the miscellaneous papers in this volume, 
the best is a critical study of the late John Stuart Mill. Taken altogether, the 
volume is very entertaining, and affords pleasing and instructive reading." 

Evening Standard, June 8, 1875. 

"It is with real pleasure we see these Contributions to Land and Water na 
longer limited to the columns of a newspaper, whatever may be its circulation. 
For the excellence and charm of these papers we must refer the reader to the vol- 
ume before us, which cannot fail to interest and instruct its readers. Their variety 
and range may be gathered from the subjects treated : — Snakes, Vipers, English 
Snakes, Waterton as a Naturalist, John Stuart Mill, History of the Gipsies, and 
the Duke of Argyll on the Preservation of the Jews." 

London Courier, June, 1875. 

"The Natural History Contributions, which are very interesting, though par- 
taking largely of a controversial nature, deal chiefly with questions affecting snakes 
and vipers. Of the other Contributions, the most attractive and readable is the 
one which contests some of Mr. Borrow's conclusions in his well-known account of 
the Gipsies. Mr. John Stuart Mill forms the subject of a slashing dissertation, 
which is not likely to find much favour with the friends of the departed philosopher." 

Rochdale Observer, June 19, 1875. 

" The study of natural history has a peculiar charm for most people, but for 
Lancashire folk it seems to have a special interest. Perhaps the most striking 
feature of the book at the head of this notice is the variety of topics touched upon • 



A'OT/CES OF THE BRITISIT PRESS, 

topics which. althouv;h apparently incomjvxtiMc and incongnious, are, nevertheless, 
both curious and interesting-. The author certainly britig^ a large amout\t ot special 
knowlciig-e to the discussioti of the questions he introduces, and the essays are un. 
doubtedly well written. Our readers will sec that the work is full of contaivcrsial 
matter, embracing t\atural history, tlicology, atid biography, and consequently will 
suit the taste of those who like to enter it\to discussiotvs which excite the feelings, 
and in which abundance of cnct^y and ability is displayed. The book is certainly 
ably written, and the author s;hows himself to be a man of large accomplishments.^' 

Liverpool Albion, June iS. 1S75. 

" The articles arc written in a verj* readable manner, and will be found inter- 
esting even by those who have no special knowledgf of natural history or interest 
in it. The Gipsies arc competitors with the snakes for Mr. Simson's regards, and 
several papers are devoted to these mysterious nomadic tribes. F'erhaps the most 
curious jviper in the volume is written to prove that John lUinyan was a Gipsy, and 
a very fair case is certainly made out. princij^ally from Bunyan's own autobiographi- 
cal statements. With the exception of the papers on John Stuart Mill, to which we 
have alrc.uiy alluded, and which are far worse than worthless, the book is one 
which wc cm recommend." 

Newc:stle Courant, June 11, 1S75. 

" The bulk of these Contributions appeared in /,?«,;'.:•;./ Jf'.jfrf. We think the 
author has done well to give them to the public in the more enduring fonn of a well 
got up volume. The book cot\tains. also, a critical sketch of the career of John 
Stuart Mill ; some gossip about Gipsies; ai\d the Puke of Argyll's notions about 
the preservation of the Jews. Altogether, the book is very readable." 

Northern Whig-. June 17, 1S75. 

"This volume consists of Contributions to Zrf«</ <i«</ rf'jA--f* by a writer well- 
known as the author [editor] of a standaixl book on the Gipsies, and is evidently 
the production of a clear, intelligent, and most observant mind. Mr. Sitnson adds 
a number of miscellaneous papers, including a masterly, though severe, criticism 
of John Stuart Mill — 'his religion, his education, a crisis in his history, his wife. 
Mill and son,* — i\s well as several desultory papers on the Gipsies, elicited, *"jr the 
most part, by criticisms on his work on that singular race." 

Western Times, June 29, 1S75. 

" The preface to this volume is dated from New York, and the contents bear 
marks of the free, racy style of transatlantic writers. The volume closes with a 
paper on the " Preservation of the Jews.' The writer deals with his several sub- 
jects with tnarked ability, and his essays fonn a volume which will pay for reading, 
and therefore pay for purchasing." 

Daily Review, June 11, 1S75. 

" We need only mention the other subjects — Waterton as a Natunilist. Roman- 
ism, lohn Stuart Mill. Simson's History of the Gipsies, Borrow on the Gipsies, the 
Scottish Chutvhes and the Gipsies, Was John Bunyan a Gipsy? and, of coui-se, the 
literary ubiquitous Duke of Argyll on the Preservation of the Jews. The only pa- 
per we have not ventured to look at is the last, in the dread that on this question 
the versatile Duke might be found, as in the matter of the Scottish Church, verify- 
ing the French proverb — // rvi c^fv/n'r mi.i'i a j».}A^ft^ A<-ntYS — ;x work in which the 
authvM- of this volume is an adept '"n quiet, quaint, and clever ways, however, 
which make it interesting." 

NEW YORK: JAMl-.S MILLER. 



CONTENTS. 



Vll'KKS AND SNAKKS GENi;!' A JJ.Y 7 

WHITJ-: OF SELIJORNE ON 'J J 1 1. VIl'KK 10 

wniTJ-: OK si:ij;oj<NE on snakj::; 17 

SNAKES SWALLOWING TMEIK YOfJNG 23 

SNAKES SWALLOWLNG THEIX YOUNG 25 

SNAKES CHARM 1N(; i'Ayi)'., 30 

Mk. frank IJTJCKLANO ON i;NG!.r.ll SNAKES 31 

Mr. GOSJiE ON 'JJJI': JAMAICA liOA S\VALI,OWI.\'G HE)' YOIiNG, , 33 

AMERICAN SNAKE.S, 36 

AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENi lON ON SNAKES, . . .36 

CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST, .... 39 



KOMAKLSM, 



49 



JOHN .STUART MILL: A S'l'UUY. 

HIS RELIGION 69 

" •• HIS EDUCATION Hz 

** •' A CRISIS IN HIS HISTORY. ... 90 

" " HIS WIFE. 97 

MILL AND SON 105 

SLMSON'S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES in 

Mr. liORROW ON THE GIFSIES 112 

THE. SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND TJH-: SOCIAL EMANCIPATION 

OF THE GII'Sn:.S 150 

WAS JOHN liUNYAN A GIPSY? ,57 

THE ];UKE OF ARfJYLL ON Tin; PRESERVATION fjF THE 

JEWS ,0, 

INDEX ,7, 

A 1' I' i: X I) I X . 

I. JOHN iJUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES 183 

H, M)'. FRANK liUCKLAND AND WlliJ E OF SELiiORNE, . 187 

III. Mr. frank BUCKLAND ON T'lE VIPER. .... 192 

IV. THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH ,<^ 



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